The Saturday Exhale Episode 23: Who Is To Blame For Jason Arday?

Vadim Gershteyn, PhD, MPH served as my editor for StressHacked and contributed writing to my upcoming book The Stone Wall. He joins me for this discussion.

VG: Rest in peace Jason Arday. In my view, it is a tragedy whenever someone commits suicide, which is what appears to have taken place with Arday. Arday left behind two children. For this reason, his suicide is selfish but it is also tragic.

Arday had been a “poster-boy” twice in his life: first, for Cambridge University, who touted him as a legitimate scholar and a trailblazer; his appointment as Professor of Sociology of Education made him the youngest Black person ever appointed to a professorship at Cambridge. The second time Arday was a poster-boy was when his alleged lies unraveled, and he became a microcosm for everything that is perceived wrong with academia, largely by the Right.

I believe in this discussion we should acknowledge two axioms: first, being an alleged fraud does not justify said fraud being bullied to death. Second, one can simply ignore the criticism, as Tyler, the Creator so colorfully put it, “How…is cyberbullying real? Just walk away from the screen…close your eyes.” Or, as Marcus Aurelius described it differently, you can choose how the difficulties of your life affect you.

So, what is the lesson here? Who is responsible for Arday’s death? It was not his critics, like Nathan Cofnas, who exposed him. It is not even his supporters, like the administration at Cambridge University. It is he: Arday. He is ultimately responsible.

AT: The world would be a better place if we all took personal responsibility. I say this, quite literally, in the most extreme sense. Yes, what happened to Jason Arday ultimately rests upon the feet, or in this unfortunate case the grave, of Jason Arday. But it also lies at the feet of those that mocked him, and those that propped him up when it was quite apparent he was mentally ill, from university administrators, to his colleagues, and sympathetic media outlets and political allies.

For that matter, it also lies at the feet of the students who attended Cambridge, particularly the Faculty of Education, and the parents, grant committees, and governmental agencies that assisted with funding their attendance. To some degree, the blame lies on each and every one of us for either supporting these bewildering political agendas, or not doing more, or better, to prevent this madness from becoming normative. Jason Arday was simultaneously his own worst enemy, a predator deceiving academia and greater society for personal gain, and a vulnerable victim, manipulated and used for ideological ends.

This logic is consistent with fault assignment for any competent leader, business or otherwise. When mistakes are made, a good leader must own it, even if they had no personal hand in the plan or execution—for even in this scenario, blame is attributed to the leader for their absence and ignorance. One cannot effectively lead with their eyes glued shut.

The question for the academic Left becomes: how aware were they of Arday, his delusions, his deceits, and his fragility? If they were aware, opting to ignore the truth in order to preserve their virtue signal of the youngest black professor ever appointed at their institution, they have committed the most heinous moral crime: they manipulated and used a vulnerable individual for their own selfish ends, culminating in his death, a type of exploitative psychopathy they accuse their political counterparts of, often without evidence or support. Alternatively, they were not aware of his vulnerability, Arday effectively deceiving them of his always improbable, often impossible delusions. If the latter is true, then even my most hyperbolic accusations regarding the intellectual ineptitude in academia, especially administrative staff and within the social sciences, has proven to be understated in reality.

Either way, the academic Left is unfit to refer to themselves as arbiters of truth, or protectors of justice. They are either dangerous to both, or beyond incompetent at either, there is no third option. As for the Right, following the rightful outrage they exhibited regarding many on the Left celebrating the death of Charlie Kirk, any response short of tragic sorrow is hypocrisy.

When we boil it down, a man is dead. As Vadim pointed out, he leaves a widow and two children behind without a husband or father. Students were betrayed, deprived of a proper education, and the general population’s trust in previously respected institutions, such as Cambridge, has taken another blow. Society is more divided from this event, even if by only a hair. Jason Arday’s life, and his death, are tragic, and the tragedy exists on numerous levels.

VG: This isn’t going to end, at least not on a social level. Though I forgot to mention it in my introduction to this newsletter, I was actually appalled and surprised to the degree to which Arday’s story had become an international sensation. There are elements of this story that are memetic. Arday’s treatment in the media has the same quality as the “hawk tuah” girl or the woman who screamed “these motherfuckers aren’t real!” to a crowd waiting to board a plane, which led to a few days of speculation of whether this woman was disclosing a secret government program or was schizophrenic. In other words, there is something socially fascinating about Arday that seems to go beyond even DEI criticisms. He “says a lot about our society” in ways that can’t be delineated or quantitatively presented.

I have already been hearing rejoinders that Arday did run a lot (30 marathons in 35 days) and that he did play semi-professional football, though possibly not with Crystal Palace but with the Battersea Park Rangers. Which is to say that Arday’s lies were extreme exaggerations but not wholly fabricated. For what it’s worth, I would struggle doing much of what Arday actually did, though I suspect he would struggle with what I did, such as completing a dissertation without plagiarism.

For me, personally, Arday’s story was somewhat of a vindication so I followed it ravenously. I had a disheartening experience after completing my PhD, failing to get an interview at a single post-doc appointment, even for one where I had a relevant recommendation. In one case, an institution rejected my application without even getting the required second letter of recommendation, which I had to solicit an old supervisor for. In another case, an institution emailed me to tell me that the post-doc had closed, but only after inquiring whether I had sent in an application—they didn’t have to email me at all! My body of academic work is not stellar, perhaps because I worked as a consultant during my PhD, but if I had been given post-doc funding it would have been, I’m at least somewhat sure.

I have mused to interlocutors that the only way I could get a position at some of these universities is if I cut off my penis. My interlocutors look shocked, and then proceed to clarify, “You mean metaphorically speaking? Like if you neuter your speech?” and I reply, “No, literally. If I do something, which is considered a legitimate treatment for a small minority of people, but is incidentally considered cruel torture by the vast majority, then this is the only incentive for academia to look at my application.” What I mean to say is that academia wants people confused about their gender presentation to be teaching your children. They want grifters like Arday teaching your children. If you think lucidly, clearly, and pragmatically, your role isn’t in academia, but somewhere else.

AT: I simultaneously agree and disagree regarding this “ending on a social level.” Everything “ends” and nothing “ends,” as society and our actions within it are constantly evolving, yet we are intrinsically tied to the same innate behavioral patterns. Generally speaking, we are tribal, seeking protection and assurance of belonging, and this is usually achieved through ideological conformity to the normative in-group behavior and beliefs. The unwavering support of Arday from the academic Left, followed by the visceral condemnation from the political Right, fits these innate tribalistic tendencies perfectly. As for the rest of us, those inhabiting the vast middle, humans tend to be fascinated by trainwrecks—that is, until we are inside the train, or in the direct path of its wreckage.

For many, the insanity occurring in our institutions, and the bloodlust enjoyed by the political Right when exposed, is still a trainwreck in the distance. It hasn’t yet ruined their own lives, or harmed them in ways they are consciously aware. For you, it has. For me, I cannot ignore the progression, cannot help but notice the patterns, and cannot stop myself from synthesizing all of the signals into a cohesive vision of the world we are headed toward, one in which I do not want to live, and am pained to think my children will be subjected to.

So, things will exist as they do now, until the problem intensifies to a point where enough of us see that we are in the train, or perhaps in the direct path of its wreckage. Only then will this curious, morbid fascination transform into serious contemplation, reflection, and then action to stop what’s becoming inevitable from occurring: the destruction of our civilization. All we can do is raise awareness of the impending wreck, work to convince others that they’re in its path, and hope that action occurs before the trajectory becomes unalterable and we have no time to escape unscathed.

VG: There is something to this idea that we all love trainwrecks. In fact, I think it’s understated to the degree to which human beings are motivated by sadism, as a kind of imperfect formation of their will to power. Thomas Hobbes gets at this when he states that “general inclination of all mankind” is the existence of “a perpetual and restless desire of power after power that ceaseth only in Death.” Friedrich Nietzsche likewise alludes to this in On The Genealogy of Morality when he talks about how punishment is doled out because people like to watch others suffer, not just as a preventative measure. Finally, Sigmund Freud also understood this fact about sadism when he stated that human beings are motivated by both a life force and a “death drive.” There is no doubt to me that the political Right liked watching Arday “suffer,” though I was not one of these people. I could not care less what happened to him, but I do want institutions like Cambridge to get their just deserts. I am reminded of what is stated by Eric Fromm,

What is the essence of the sadistic drives? Again, the wish to inflict pain on others is not the essence. All the different forms of sadism which we can observe go back to one essential impulse, namely, to have complete mastery over another person, to make of him a helpless object of our will, to become the absolute ruler over him, to become his God, to do with him as one pleases. To humiliate him, to enslave him, are means to this end and the most radical aim is to make him suffer, since there is no greater power over another person than that of inflicting pain on him, to force him to undergo suffering without his being able to defend himself. The pleasure in the complete domination over another person (or other animate objects) is the very essence of the sadistic drive.

There is a political program related to sadism, in libertinism (not to be confused with libertarianism, which is fine and dandy to me), and it comes out in its founding philosophy, which is expressed in the prison writings of Marquis de Sade, a pedophilic “philosopher” who was jailed because the French Revolution was not sufficiently radical to his tastes. In his pornographic screeds, de Sade occasionally advocates for a political position of the philosophy that bears his name (sadism), writing (among other things),

He who has the right to eat the fruit of a tree may assuredly pluck it ripe or green, according to the inspiration of his taste. But, it will be objected, there is an age when the man’s proceedings would be decidedly harmful to the girl’s well‑being. This consideration is utterly without value; once you concede me the proprietary right of enjoyment, that right is independent of the effects enjoyment produces; from this moment on, it becomes one, whether this enjoyment be beneficial or damaging to the object which must submit itself to me. Have I not already proven that it is legitimate to force the woman’s will in this connection? and that immediately she excites the desire to enjoy she has got to expose herself to this enjoyment, putting all egotistical sentiments quite aside? The issue of her well‑being, I repeat, is irrelevant. As soon as concern for this consideration threatens to detract from or enfeeble the enjoyment of him who desires her, and who has the right to appropriate her, this consideration for age ceases to exist; for what the object may experience, condemned by Nature and by the law to slake momentarily the other’s thirst, is nothing to the point; in this study, we are only interested in what agrees with him who desires.

What de Sade is describing isn’t exactly power over another person (though it certainly is this literally), but predation. His is a philosophy of predation. The usefulness of de Sade is to remind us that libertinism is the end result of liberalism, according to him. The pamphlet this passage comes from is titled “Yet Another Effort, Frenchmen, If You Would Become Republicans”; this is a semi-serious proposal by Sade to create a new French secular religion, complete with rape, incest, child abuse, and other horrors. How does de Sade relate to Arday? I believe we’re witnessing a Sadean or sadistic reaction to Arday’s demise. I hope, as you state, Alex, that this reaction could “transform into serious contemplation, reflection, and then action to stop what’s becoming inevitable from occurring: the destruction of our civilization.” If we take glee in Arday’s death, I think this is a no-go to this transformation and an unfortunate stop in our legitimate will to power, sublimated into an illegitimate feeling of wanting to watch others suffer.

AT: It was Tertullian, the early Christian philosopher, who wrote about Heaven as a place where the true believers could delight in watching the torment of those in Hell from up above. This spiritual sadism is in line with the physical sadism our ancestors engaged in, Pagan and Abrahamic followers alike. But, we do have a strong drive to stop, contemplate, and take action against these base urges. As I followed the Jason Arday saga as it unraveled at the end of his life, I held contempt for him, but more so for Cambridge and the supposed “intellectual academic Left.” When I learned of his death, for a moment my instinctive reactions were far too close to the masses on the Right; I felt vindicated, my contempt heightened, and my empathy for Arday and his family were nonexistent. At first, I laid the blame solely on the feet of his colleagues, or abusers—however you interpret it—at Cambridge and their allies.

Then, I laid my head down to sleep, and this mix of excited vindication and contempt sat like a cold rock in me, sleep proving impossible. I didn’t want to think about it at that moment, but I knew that this reaction wasn’t the whole story. I knew it was more nuanced, and that if I let these emotionally driven conclusions fester, they would lead me astray, away from everything I stand for. So I reminded myself that in order to arrive at who I wish to become, I must endeavor to behave in a way that aligns with that vision, that drives me towards a future self I will be proud of. So, I set myself to confront the uncomfortable. What instincts in myself could have contributed to this tragedy, had I been closer to the event, and to what intensity do they exist in others?

By understanding these uncomfortable truths in ourselves, we can observe and understand them in others. By observing and understanding them in others, we can use these external behaviors as a mirror, one with greater clarity than our own self reflection, since we observe others without the same delusions and unwarranted justifications which we afford ourselves. We venture into the abyss using mirrors pointed away from the target, for we are blind to the path when staring straight into it. This is how we stop the madness, how we begin the road of deep contemplation. It starts with the self, but in an ironic twist, the path to the self is through observing others, and turning our reactionary judgement of them inward, against ourselves.